Saturday, 29 June 2013

It's me
again with another offering from the humid hills of Oxfordshire.

We all
struggle with men's cards (well we struggle with men really) so I thought I
would give another 'boys card' a go.

This
one I call "Oily Fingers", hence the fingerprints around the image.
(Not me forgetting to wash my hands I assure you.)

I chose my papers and them my
markers to give a co-ordinated look. I
love the green and purple together. I
really enjoyed colouring in this little guy.
My brother Jonathan has just become an avid bike rider so he may get
this for his birthday. I would imagine he
wishes he had that much hair though!

I embossed the strips of paper
to give extra texture then used my new BFF, gilding wax, to enhance the
pattern.

I hope that the circle dies
around him look like a tyre as that was my intention. As I did not have the right size die to mat
my sentiment on I used my EK Success Circle Scissor to cut 2 tiny circles.

A close up of the colouring (& fingerprints)

Look out, these 'dabs' may appear on Crimewatch!

And there we have it. Overall I think he came out really well and I
love the colour combo.

Sunday, 23 June 2013

For
some reason I have had an idea for a while to do a little ballet class,
complete with mirror and barre. Bear
with, there’s a short(ish) story coming up with added waffle.

So here it is my mini ballet troupe practising at the barre (bless them).

I call this card ‘...And Bend Two Three, and Up Two Three’

Sorry, not a great shot.

I
was (and still am to some extent) a big ballet fan (now only watching not doing,
heaven forfend!) and used to attend regular dance classes in my ‘yoof’. I even had lofty ambitions to be a ballet
teacher. Never a prima ballerina of
course (well, not with these hips) and threw myself into it whole heartedly.

But
then I discovered nightclubs and boys. Oh
dear! The rest is a sad and sorry tale
of shoulder pads, ra-ra skirts, dodgy 80’s hairdo’s and Dad taxi’s. I hang my head in shame just thinking about
it (but I’m smiling while I do it).

So
back to my ballet class. This all finally
grew legs (wearing pink tights probably) when I bought the Crafters Companion
Inspiration Magazine that came with a stamp set, and on said stamp set was a
little ballerina. Perfect! On seeing this little sweetie the idea for
the class came rushing into my head like Margot Fonteyn on Red Bull! Sometimes I see the design so clearly in my mind
it is as if I have already made it.
Weird but true.

I
decided to make a twisted easel card for my project so scored the front of a 6
x 6” card blank from bottom left to top right diagonally. I embossed some Kraft card with a Wood Panel
embossing folder and attached it to the base of the card.

I
stamped the ballerinas three times and coloured them with Promarkers &
Flexmarkers to match the papers I chose.
I decided to create them each as individuals, even though they are
technically the same girl. I didn’t want
them to have an identity crisis! I
experimented with various skin tones and hair colours and gave them different
dresses. I think they came out quite
well. I then layered some papers onto
kraft card then fixed my ‘mirror ‘to that with tiny brads.

For
the barre I used a kebab stick (an essential piece of crafting kit that I
cannot be without) and stuck it to the back of the girls with Collal 3D Glue
Gel then stuck my troupe to the mirror.

Once
everything was dry I glued the whole panel the card front. Of course I needed a stopper to prevent the
card falling forward so I used a music themed collection of stamps from Kanban. However the stamps themselves were too big
for the project. So if something is too
big what do you have to do (keep it clean please)? You have to shrink it. So please step forward, my new BFF, white
shrink plastic! Who invented this
stuff? It’s fab. I think I love it because it has worked every
single time I’ve used it. It always
makes me smile to see how dinky the image becomes. I always use a metal takeaway tray when
heating as it stops the plastic blowing off the table and seems to get it to
shrink evenly. I got this tip from Mel
Heaton on Create and Craft. It’s fool
proof (well if this fool can do it…).

Now,
just to be awkward, I wanted to have some ballet shoes hanging from my
sentiment banner but I had nothing in my stash that I could use. I toyed with the idea of making them out of
air dry clay but all my efforts looked like clogs or clown shoes! So the only thing I could do was to draw them
myself. Now I am no artist (obviously)
but this was only my second attempt at them and I am quite pleased with how
they turned out. They don’t look like
they belong to Bongo the Clown and that’s what counts.

I
used a Tonic flower punch and a Spellbinders leaf die to create some little
accent flowers at the front and there you have it. Mission accomplished.

My hand drawn ballet shoes (not too clown-like)

"I love you shrink plastic, I do. Shrink plastic I love you"

Can you spot me, trying to get in on the act?

There I am again! Go away!

One taken in my photo booth, but I'm still there. I have no shame!

Basic recipe:

6 x 6” card
blank

Stamps – Ballerina by Crafters
Companion, music images by Kanban, sentiment (free with a magazine)

Promarkers & Flexmarkers

Papers – Sweet Wishes (free with
a magazine)

Mirri card

Kraft card

White Shrink Plastic

Sheena Douglass Wood Panel
embossing folder

Dies: Spellbinders Ribbon Banners
& Jewel Flower & Flourishes (leaf)

Inks: Momento, Stazon &
Tumbled Glass DI

Tonic flower punch

AB crystals

Tiny silver brads

Ribbon

Kebab stick

Hand drawn ballet shoes (don’t
look too close)

Scary photography!

It is not until you realise that you have in essence
attached a reflective surface you could do your makeup in to your card that you
realise photographing it will not be easy.
I was constantly staring back at myself (very disturbing). My camera and my fingers make a few
unscheduled appearances in my pictures for which I apologise. If you are of a nervous disposition please
look away.

Friday, 21 June 2013

I
have had a headache all day so am glad to be home to get on with relaxing, forgetting
about pain, and crafting.

My
youngest dog, Millie (a dark brindle & white Staffie (she’s dinky)) is
currently trying to entice me into a game of ‘ball’ and thinks chucking it on
my knee will do the trick. I have to say
it does. She’s no fool that dog. We play, she’s happy; I get on with what I am
doing. All is right with the world.

So
to today’s card which I have to admit I am just in the process of
completing. It consists of a gorgeous
image from Elisabeth Bell called: One Sunny Day (oh if only).

I call it, ‘Coffee Stirrers: not just for Coffee’

Before
I began colouring I picked my papers which I think (and unfortunately cannot
confirm) are from K&Company. I
thought they were quite masculine, not a flower in sight, and would suit the
design very well. I then picked my
Pormarkers & Flexmarkers to match. I
really enjoyed colouring this image.
There is so much going on.

I
had intended to simply die cut this little chap and place him on mats to
complete the design. However that was
not meant to be as once again I had an idea that came to me at ‘stupid-o’clock’
in the morning that I had to do something about. To complement the image of the bridge I
thought I’d use lolly sticks to make a ‘wooden’ frame. The realisation that lolly sticks were not
something to be found in my house led me to my rather impressive collection of
coffee stirrers. I confess to having
‘purloined’ them from various beverage selling establishments in the local
area! Ho hum. Hope Crimewatch isn’t tuning in! I stuck them around the image with Collal 3D
Glue Gel and embellished them with twine.
It looked good. 3 cheers for
coffee stirrers!! I need more now. Watch out Costa!

I
distressed the edges of all my papers and backing card with my scissors and
added stitching around the edges with a white paint pen. I was hoping to emulate the patch on the
little boy’s dungarees but I’m not too sure that’s very obvious. I wrapped more twine around the small mat
then stuck them all down.

My
fish embellishment came from an idea I had whilst playing around with my Martha
Stewart Air Dry Clay. This stuff is fab,
I love it. I thought ‘what would happen
if I smooth out a piece and stamp into it’?
Only one way to find out! So I
found a stamp of a fish that I have had for more years that I care to remember
and pressed it into the clay. Hey
presto! One impression of a fish! All be
it one with a rather grumpy face. I
carefully cut around him using my craft knife (beyond fiddly!) and left him to
dry. I decided it was a ‘him’, nothing
to do with the grumpy expression! J Once
dry I painted him lightly with Aquamarkers.

I
had completed this phase when……… all hell broke loose…..

An
explosion of dogs going barmy (I have 3, a Labrador and 2 Staffies – I know I
must be mad), barking and running up and down the hall like the crazy canines
they are. It was someone who had the audacity
to knock on our front door! Well really!

But
it was my lucky day as it was our courier bringing me my newly ordered Marianne
Creatables Anja Vintage Swirls dies. I tore open the packaging and immediately
cut 2 from green card and stuck them to my design. Who says it’s not all about the timing!

So
there we are. A slightly too orangey sun
later (bit miffed about that actually), cut from Spellbinders and using a
Hunkydory sentiment, and I am done.

Thursday, 20 June 2013

A
warm and humid day here in Oxfordshire so that means thunderstorms later! Oh well apparently we have 10 years of this
to look forward to so that will be nice!!?!!

So
to today’s card. I made this because it
was an itch I had to scratch; meaning that it was an idea in my head that
refused to go away. I wanted to create
something that might resemble an old photo, sepia rather than black and
white. I knew the image I wanted to use:
Sylvia Zet’s gorgeous Sweet Blossom and that I wanted it to be surrounded by an
ornate frame. So I had to get on with it
before it drove me mad!

I call this card ‘Sweet’ in Sepia.

I
do love to colour in. It must be the
most relaxing thing imaginable, and watching a simple outlined image come to
life is something very special indeed. It
gives you the sense that you are the artist. I am a migraine sufferer and had one at the
time of creating this card but the whole process so took me over that I can
barely remember suffering any pain at all.
Does that mean that crafting should be prescribed by the NHS, “Crafting
to be taken 3 times a day after meals”?
Would Boots have to stock stamps and pens? Worth a thought I think.

I
coloured Sweet Blossom with Promarkers and Flexmarkers. I have to admit that I did struggle somewhat
with her hair but I think it turned out all right in the end. I stamped and cut the Heartfelt Creations
Posy Patch flowers using some of the paper already used in the mats and layers
and glittered them using Debbi Moore’s fab Kaleidoscope glitter. So many colours in this stuff it’s beautiful.

I
used the Spellbinders Elegant Labels 4 die to cut my frame and inked it with
Vintage Photo DI then backed it with brown card to emphasis the design. I love this die. It’s a wonderful size and just the ornate
look I had in my head.

I
made the rose sitting on the bow using the Sizzix 3D Flower Bigz die (I always
make my own flowers where I can), and felt I needed to glitter that too. All in all I think I fulfilled my original
vision for this card. I love these
colours and it is my first foray into single colour-family card making. I will be doing it again.

Friday, 14 June 2013

Well it’s another ‘sunny’ day here in Oxfordshire, ho hum. Thank goodness the weekend is only a few
hours away and head down, full speed ahead crafting can commence!

Well despite it being June I am blummin’ freezing. My office is like an icebox. Maybe they are trying to keep me awake. Yes, that could well be it. My snoring must be quite off putting!

Any way here is today’s effort. It is the card I made for my mother this year
for Mother’s Day and I call it “No.....it’s supposed to be me!”

Had a minor glue disaster near the base of the banner. Pinflair glue; may dry clear but notinvisible!

I chose this image from the Paintbox Poppets as I believed the
rosy cheeked young lady bore a passing
resemblance to me when I was that age. My
hair was not as blond though. It would
seem though this was pure fantasy on my part as when I explained this to my mum
all she said was, “Oh! Really?” Good grief!

See what I have to put up with. However, being a crafter herself she was
more interested in what dies I had used.
I work to a tough crowd.

Thursday, 13 June 2013

Today I will not mention the weather (biting my tongue) and
just get on with the matter in hand.

I have to admit that I am having a wonderful time searching
through all the amazing blogs here in Blogland.
Wow, there are some mega talented people out there! I find it all a little daunting sometimes
seeing the extraordinary skill level that people have and it can be a little
off-putting too. I know that I am highly
unlikely to achieve such quality work but I am enjoying the journey (a famous
phrase out there I think) so I will, in the Great British tradition, ‘Carry on
Regardless’ (Ooh Missus).

So today I would like to show my first ever foray into the
uncharted waters of CAS cards. I call it, ‘With Love’ (well it should have a CAS title too don’t you think?)When I
saw the acronym ‘CAS’ on some of the blogs I have to admit to not knowing what
it meant. A few visits later and the
penny dropped. So a Clean and Simple
card it is then. It is quite hard not to
fill empty space. You look at it and
think, “Something should go in there, surely”, but sitting on your hands is the
way forward with this type of card I believe so here is my effort.

I made this card for my brother and his wife’s wedding
anniversary. I knew what I wanted to do;
a long branch spanning 3 panels sparsely decorated with tiny flowers. So off to my stamp files I go only to
discover that the branch I wanted to use is too ‘busy’ and not long enough. Fudge!
So what to do? Now I love
Imagination Crafts stencils and I have to confess to owning quite a few (!) and
as luck would have it the Butterfly Blossom stencil had exactly the branch
design I was looking for. So, using the
stencil the old fashioned way, I drew through it and then coloured it in. Colour is to my mind the most vital part of
the design. Get that wrong and it can
completely ruin what you were trying to achieve. So I chose to use the softest
aqua that I could find (one of my favourite colours) which seemed to add to the
simplicity of the overall effect.

Wednesday, 12 June 2013

Well I’m back again.
Not too summery outside today I’m afraid. The Oxfordshire cloud is looming low and
menacing but the sun is trying to shine.
Not trying too hard though.

Why are we so obsessed with the weather in Britain? I have to admit I am a weather nut. I have to see the forecast every morning (and
then again in the evening) and I am constantly logging on to the BBC Weather
site to see if there have been any shocking new developments. How sad is that! Still it means that I am never caught out by
a sudden shower or snowfall. Just call
me Michael (or more appropriately Michaela) Fish!

So, to today’s offering. I call it: ‘Waistcoat Wonder’.

I made this card for my dad for Father’s Day this year. It will be winging its way to him tomorrow.

I had a devil of a time wrestling with the template which I
hand drew. It was not until I had
completed it (much mumbling, rubbing out and throwing in the bin later) did I
realise I could have found something on the internet (infinitely better and not
half as stressful) but I felt a small sense of accomplishment that I did it
myself. I even used a roll of
double-sided tape to draw round for the armholes in the waistcoat. Who says tape is just for sticking!

Wednesday, 5 June 2013

Well today the sun is shining and all is good with the
world. So nice to see the summer finally
arrive after the dismal few days we have had.
Can I turn my heating off now please?

Well at least my mum and I managed to finish wall papering
and painting her small bedroom whilst the rain poured. It was a bit of a chore
and my legs are killing me after going up and down the ladder umpteen
times. But it is done (huge sigh of
relief and the overwhelming odour of Deep Heat). And so, as we stand back to admire our handy
work, gazing in awe and amazement, I
allow myself a thought, “Yep, should have got a professional in”. The words ‘job’ and ‘botch’ came to mind, but
not necessarily in that order!! If we
had worn boxing gloves we couldn’t have done a worse job. Still it’s done now. With the utmost sincerity I have recommend
that she keeps the door shut and only goes in there with the light off. I realise now why I never went into the
painting and decorating business. But I
guess the next best thing is crafting; much smaller in scale and a lot less
likely to induce crying (well…..).

Anyway back to the business in hand. My card today is something I made for my
sister-in-law for her birthday but changed my mind and gave her something else
instead. I’m always doing that. So here it is.

Hope you like it. I’m
not sure. I love the image and I think
feathers give a nice touch but there is not a lot of definition in the papers
to really give any dimension. Oh well, must
try harder (and will).

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

The card I wish to show today will certainly give you a
sense of deja vu. I went through a brief
‘butterfly and flower wreath’ stage.

This card was made for the Create and Craft birthday card competition
(don’t ask). I love entering
competitions and now hope to be entering all the lovely Blogland challenges too. It really focusses the mind and sometimes
takes you out of your comfort zone (well not too far, it’s another wreath after
all), which is not a bad thing. I used
shrink plastic on this make which I haven’t used in a donkey’s age. I forgot how much I love it. The butterflies are so cute and shrank to a
natural shape which was more luck than design.
After colouring in the stamped image with pencils I used a tin foil tray
whilst heating which I saw Mel Heaton use on C&C a while ago. It’s a top tip I must say. It worked
brilliantly as the butterfly did not ‘fly’ all over the place and heat was
conducted from the bottom as well so there was not too much curling. Remember it gets mega hot though so keep
crafty fingers well away! Crikey, was that my mother then?

Monday, 3 June 2013

Ok, so here goes, my first blog post. Well, as it is very, very doubtful that
anyone is reading this I will just get on with it. Knowing no one is there is quite liberating
actually! I could say anything I
like! Mmmmm……….. OK so I’m not really a
rebel, I’ll just chill and type.

So, who am I? Well I
am a 48 year old Civil Servant (yeah I know) with a passion for craft. I have made things of one shape or another ever
since I was old enough to hold a crayon.
My particular love is paper craft which has proved to be both an
obsession and the most expensive hobby ever!
I recently won a sewing machine
making a card for Creativity! Magazine so I guess I’ll have to master that at
some stage. So many crafts; so little
time.

The idea of this blog, as with most crafting blogs I guess,
is to give myself a crafting focus and allow me to enter all those wonderful
challenges that are out here in Blogland.
So I will post my makes as often
as I can (or when I remember) and hope that you like them (if indeed I have
anyone viewing them at all).

So we have lift off!

The first card I wish to show is one I made for Mother’s
Day.

Brief story coming up; bear with.

I have 3 brothers and they all insist I make a card for them
to give to my mother be it for birthdays, Christmas or indeed Mother’s
Day. No money ever exchanges hands I
have to say and not many words of appreciation either! (Rolls eyes and tuts
loudly at this point). But I love to do
it so I shouldn’t really moan (but I will).
Brothers; can’t live with them and can’t roll them through the Bigshot
either!